The National Capital Commission could determine later this month what’s next for the Senators’ bid to build an arena downtown at LeBreton Flats.

Awarded the right to negotiate to build on the site by the NCC’s board of directors in April, the RendezVous LeBreton group — led by Senators’ owner Eugene Melnyk — submitted responses to questions on portions of their bid before a deadline that was set for Monday.

The Senators had no comment when contacted by Postmedia, but this was a significant hurdle because it allows the negotiations to move to the next stage.

Now, the NCC will study those responses and then decide during its board of directors meeting on Nov. 24 in Ottawa what the next step in the negotiation process will be for the RendezVous bid.

It’s believed the RendezVous group had to provide more details for its proposals — including some planning designs and the economics of the stadium — but everybody is being tight-lipped because there’s still plenty of hurdles to overcome before this is a reality.

The NCC has three options when they meet:

They can accept the proposal, sign an agreement and move to the next stage of approvals — including one from the government of Canada.

They can buy more time to continue to negotiate with the RendezVous group so an agreement can be finalized.

There is the option of moving to Devcore Canderel DLS group that lost out in the first place, but that seems unlikely because it bid has already lost once, it doesn’t have a main tenant for the events centre, and Melnyk has insisted more than once he has no desire to rent space there or sell.

The NCC’s board of directors chose the Senators group — which includes Trinity’s John Ruddy — to go to the second stage of the negotiations in April because they felt that it had a sound plan. The first phase calls for the group to build an 18,500-seat arena which will connect to the Light Rail Transit project.

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